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Tennessee Basketball: Vols Have Clear Run to SEC Tournament Championship

By Caleb Calhoun

Mar 10, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers players celebrate on the bench in the second half against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the SEC basketball tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: George Walker IV/The Tennessean via USA TODAY NETWORK
Mar 10, 2016; Nashville, TN, USA; Tennessee Volunteers players celebrate on the bench in the second half against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the SEC basketball tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: George Walker IV/The Tennessean via USA TODAY NETWORK /
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After the Volunteers’ shocking win over the Vanderbilt Commodores Thursday, Tennessee basketball has a clear path to the SEC Tournament Championship.

Admit it. You kind of believe now. This is what basketball tournaments do to fan bases after two thrilling wins. They start to get greedy and believe they can beat anybody.

Related Story: 5 Takeaways from Vols' Win Over Vanderbilt

After dominating the Auburn Tigers and then shocking the Vanderbilt Commodores, Vols fans might just be delusional enough to believe that their team is good enough to win the SEC Tournament Championship and score an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament…without their best player.

But is it really delusion? Maybe not.

Tennessee’s path to potentially winning the SEC Title just got a lot more open by beating Vanderbilt. Make no mistake, the Commodores were the toughest match-up of anybody the Vols could face in the tournament.

This game was in Nashville, Vanderbilt had blown out the Vols twice during the regular season, and they have three seven-footers that pose a massive size advantage against Tennessee. But Rick Barnes’s squad, led by Armani Moore’s heart, overcame the loss of Kevin Punter Jr. and beat a team they had no business beating.

Now, with the tournament remaining in Nashville, the Vols have a chance. First, let’s look at the path. Tennessee’s next opponent is the LSU Tigers. Didn’t the Vols already beat LSU by 16 earlier in the season without Punter? Indeed, they did.

If they were to get past LSU, they would play the winner of Texas A&M vs Florida in the semifinals. The Vols beat the Gators by 14 points earlier in the year and also took the Aggies all the way down to the wire, showing they are capable of winning both games.

And if they pulled off that big a shocker to get to the SEC Championship game, they would face either Kentucky, Alabama South Carolina, or Georgia. They beat both the Wildcats and the Gamecocks at home and lost to the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs by single digits…on the road. And that brings us to our next point.

Tennessee is playing this game in Nashville. This is Tennessee Vols country. Vol fans made their way out to the first game Wednesday to give their team a boost. They also neutralized the Vanderbilt fans on Thursday.

This was another reason Vanderbilt was Tennessee’s toughest match-up: they would be the only team Tennessee would not have home-court advantage in during this tournament.

But now, after two big wins and the weekend arriving, you don’t think a bunch of loyal Tennessee fans in Nashville and surrounding areas have decided to scoop up those loose SEC Tournament tickets just to see how far their Vols can go? After two games, the fan base is now energized and could be out in full force Friday against the LSU Tigers.

And if they keep winning, the fan base will only grow.

More volunteers: 5 Things the Tennessee Vols Must do to Win the SEC Tournament

So essentially, the Vols’ path to the SEC Championship includes a bunch of home games against teams they either beat or took down to the wire. All of a sudden, after beating Vanderbilt, winning the title is not so unlikely.

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